


The Beginnings

by gaygreekgladiator (ama)



Series: Tending Goats and Picking Vegetables [1]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 01:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/gaygreekgladiator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two old drabbles, adapted to fit the verse; the first time Barca invites Pietros to join him in freedom, and the moment when he realizes that it could actually be a reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginnings

Some nights they lie awake in the dark, whispering. Pietros has few stories of his own to tell, but he liked to make his own. He spun tales out of the air, fables both simple and complex, and always endearingly optimistic. Pietros has seen the worst parts of humanity, and still believes in the best. Barca loves him for it.

In exchange, Barca slowly begins to tell him stories of the places he’s been and seen. Some tales he cannot tell. He won’t tell Pietros of his father, who would hate him, or his mother, who wouldn’t. He can’t tell him about the city of Carthage, which lies in pebbles across the sea.

He can talk about the farms surrounding the city, and the wilds beyond them, where he had played as a child. He can talk about Alexandria, which his father had passed through once on his mad rage against Rome, where Barca had wandered the streets until his body was exhausted and his mind heavy with wonders. He can talk about Hispania, with its hot, dry days, and Gaul, with its endless green forests and rushing rivers.

He’s never been far enough east to see Syria or Greece, never been to Sicilia or Germania, but he passes on the tales he’s heard anyway, because Pietros has never been outside of Capua and he likes to hear the stories, and make up more of his own. Barca gives him three minutes of information in his rough, awkward phrasing, and two nights later Pietros can spin tales about it until they fall asleep.

“Someday soon, we will go,” he murmurs one night. Pietros stirs sleepily.

“Hm?”

“When we are free.”

“ _We_?” Pietros whispers.

“Don’t tell me you wish to stay in Capua.”

“No,” he says, kissing Barca’s shoulder as he curls closer. Barca closes his eyes, and dreams.

 

\---

Barca stops at the doorway to the ludus and stares. He feels dizzy; he’s having trouble believing that what he sees is real, that what he heard is true, that the dream within his grasp won’t dissipate like breezy summer clouds in a drought. Some part of him wants to storm in the room, throw Pietros over his shoulder and leave the ludus in the dust, but he doesn’t move. He can’t.

He watches the way Pietros moves, with delight written in every line of his body, and wonders where they will go. The whole of Rome is open to them; he knows parts of Gaul, or North Africa—though those would be more expensive trips. It doesn’t matter if they don’t know where to go right now. It will take several days for Ashur’s loan to come through, and for Dominus to assign another slave to the ludus, and they have time to talk.

He wonders, though. Pietros has never seen a true city, where there are shops on every street and news pouring in from all avenues of the empire and people, more people than anyone had ever dreamed. Cities are good places for men like Barca, who have the sharp wits and brute strength needed for jobs in back alleys and on docks and in brothels.

But honestly, Barca is tired of those kinds of jobs, and he secretly hopes that Pietros would prefer the country, where they can finally learn what  _privacy_ feels like. Land will cost coin, but other than that they don’t need much—a small house, a vegetable garden, some chickens, perhaps even goats or pigs if they get truly lucky. That’s all.

He can’t stand it any more. He strides into the room, wraps his arms around Pietros’s waist, and leans down to press his mouth to the droplets of wine rolling down his skin. Pietros looks around, wide-eyed and breathless. Barca nods.

Pietros lets out a sound that is half a laugh and half a gasp, and tries to turn away as though he is overcome or embarrassed. Barca holds him close and kisses him again, thinking  _freedom._


End file.
